


Borrowed Time

by murderlight



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Humor, Redemption, Romance, bucket lists, everybody is just a bit gay for him, gratuitous references to boobs, just a whole lot of boobs, mild Kon/Ichigo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 15:50:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16726344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderlight/pseuds/murderlight
Summary: “I’m sorry, Kon. You were simply never meant to last this long.”Faced with an hourglass that’s slowly running out, Kon tries to live with the time he’s given. Along the way he learns that tragedy is a shockwave, and in trying to make a difference before the end, he’s going to change everything.





	Borrowed Time

**Author's Note:**

> big ups to [peppertea](https://peppertea.tumblr.com/) for bringing her leg game to this fic, as you'll see within. [trevo](https://trevoshere.tumblr.com/) took the time to decipher a truly awful concept art for the banner and made something brilliant, so both of these awesome artists deserve snacks and applause. 
> 
> welcome to the fic nobody asked for. please heed the tags.

 

When he goes to see them all at the Urahara shop, Kon is still smiling.

He shows them his soft felt paws and asks why they’ve been shaking sometimes. While he looks around the shop for Ichigo’s favourite type of chocolate, he almost misses the sharp hand-wave Urahara does to the kids in the house. They melt away like shadows, and Urahara takes him to another room without letting him buy any candy.

Kon remembers a lot of lights, after he’s taken out of the stuffed lion. He’s sort of fond of that lion, but Urahara promises to put him back when he’s finished.

Eventually he does finish. He says some things that don’t immediately make any sense. Kon’s smile slowly freezes on his face.

“Perhaps another month until full degeneration,” Urahara says, the glow of kidou fading from his fingers. His shadowed eyes are steady and sad. “I’m sorry, Kon. You were simply never meant to last this long.”

“Okay,” Kon says, nodding. Urahara stares at him for a moment that stretches forever. “I’m gonna need that chocolate free of charge today.”

“Of course,” Urahara says, already writing down the things he’d just said. “Give this to Kurosaki-san when you get home, please.”

Ichigo reads the note four times in a row, slowly sinking to sit at the end of the bed. Kon pats him on the shoulder when he finally cries.

“Come on, Ichigo, stop being a pussy. Everybody dies eventually.”

Kon isn’t good at comforting people. He knows this. But he is good at advice, at distraction, and watching Ichigo grit his teeth while tears leak through his fingers isn’t something he’s going to tolerate. He tugs at Ichigo’s stupid orange hair until their eyes meet.

“I can’t die in this body,” Kon tells him, dampening his paws on flushed skin, and waits again for Ichigo to stop his fucking waterworks. But eventually he nods, and they talk about it for a while. Soul Society and lies and vacations. Isshin would cover for them.

A plan for death, Urahara’s note says. _Don’t let Kon emotionally shut down,_ written in big loopy script and an underline. Well, hell with him, he can’t let Ichigo shut down. The kid has big things in store. So what if his soul pill is falling apart? So what if he’s going to experience tremors, numbness, rejection and memory loss? That’s a month or more away, and Kon has a family to look after in Ichigo’s stead.

“I want to say something about looking after yourself,” Ichigo says at the senkaimon, sword at waist and shoulder, his face pale. “So just look after my body, okay? No criminal stuff—” he catches himself, raising brown eyes heavenward, “—or at least nothing that’ll incriminate me. Wear a mask, maybe. Dye my hair black. Get some of the memory replacement gas. And don’t get anyone pregnant!”

Newly minted in flesh and blood, feeling warm and strong with a heart beating in his chest and blood in his veins, Kon can only smile.

“I’ll miss you too, moron.”

“Fuck off,” Ichigo says, his eyes washing bloodshot and shining. He runs into the white light of the open shoji door, and Kon’s heart doesn’t pang at all.

Freedom, he thinks, looking at his—Ichigo’s—palms. Freedom until he doesn’t need it anymore.

Cool.

Kon sits on the end of the bed until the sun goes down.

Everyone has bad months, he thinks seriously, and doesn’t understand the way his stomach clenches and churns until he’s throwing up in pristine porcelain, knees sore on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor.

Everybody dies eventually, Kon tells himself later, staring at the ceiling of the bathroom. His mouth tastes like vomit, his throat catching on things he should try to cough up. Spilt milk. Stop crying. He lifts his hand and watches the minute shake of it as his soul pill desynchronises with the body. The first sign of the degeneration. His pill was already cracking, but once it shattered he’d be nothing but a terminated defect. The last evidence of project…something. What was it?

_What was it?!_

Spearhead, Kon tells himself, over and over until his heart slows down. Spearhead.

Spearhead.

He gets up off the floor and wonders what Ichigo thought he’d be doing with his body, on the long countdown to his end.

Surely it wasn’t this.

 

* * *

 

Kon starts to walk.

He looks. He speaks. He smiles. Pets dogs in the park. Sticks his tongue out at toddlers in the supermarket to make them giggle. Directs people who are lost. Helps an old lady with her scooter when it sticks on a rough cement lip of pavement. It doesn’t give him anything, but it’s something better than his unblinking stare at Urahara’s introduction to death. It’s also more purpose than he’s ever had.

And he’s walking one night when he hears it: a high, ringing voice of dissent and the low laugh of more than one goon.

“What you got in the bag, gorgeous? I can carry it for you.”

“No, thank you!”

“Aw, is that any way to talk to my big brother? He was just trying to be nice—” A thud, and an angry feminine scream. Kon’s legs move before he can command them. They’re still stronger than iron and they’re all he needs.

“Get away from her!” he shouts furiously, flying over the established hedges and guardrails, running across the wide city road. “You dickless rodents!”

But Inoue Orihime is already moving; thigh bare through the slit of her skirt, groceries thrown into the safety of the alcove by a closed bookshop. Her strong arms grab the biggest guy and use his own forward momentum to bodyslam him straight into the concrete pavement so hard Kon almost feels the reverberation in his feet.

“And please fuck off!” she screams to the other two boys as they panic and run, shoving the body of the first guy to the ground. Kon watches in speechless surprise as she rummages through her purse for a sticking plaster to put on the unconscious guy’s forehead. She’s still smoothing it down when she glances up and sees him. “Kurosa—? Oh.”

Her brow crumples immediately, and Kon knows in his heart that he’s a fraud.

“I was going to run in like a hero!” he laughs. “Inoue-san, how could you ruin my moment like this with your amazonian fighting skills? You’re so selfish!”

“A woman must first and always know how to protect herself,” Inoue says, a single lecturing finger raised like a schoolteacher. Her copper hair is falling out of its bun; loose tendrils skimming the pale line of her neck. “Hello, Kon-san. It’s pretty late for you to be out, even with no hollows around. Is everything all right?”

“Of course!” Kon doesn’t know why he walks past her to grab her grocery bag, but it’s probably better than staring at her in mute appreciation. He hands it back and turns to the way he’d come. “Goodnight!”

“Goodnight,” Inoue replies automatically.

He’s halfway across the empty pedestrian crossing when her voice reaches him again.

“Hey, do you like horror movies?”

Kon panics.

“No!” Hesitates. “Wait, what kind? Is it the centipede movie?”

Inoue gags.

“No! That’s butt stuff!” She shouts it too loudly in public. “But I want to watch  _IT_  and tell Tatsuki-chan I’m not afraid anymore.” She holds up a rustling bag that Kon assumes contains a DVD of the movie. Fucking clowns? Was he going to watch clowns for this beautiful psychopath? “Come to my house!”

Better to just go home, Kon thinks, blinking back at her. Bad idea. Terrible.

And clowns. Fuck clowns.

Twenty minutes later, sitting on a worn couch in absolute darkness, Kon screams with heartfelt terror as a man in caked makeup chews off a small boy’s arm from a stormwater drain. At his side, Inoue is in tears already and furious about it.

“Why’s he in the drain? How’d he get in there? That boy is so stupid! Drain clowns aren’t friendly!”

They both watch in abject horror as the kid gets dragged into the clown drain, presumably to die a horrible death.

“Why are we doing this to ourselves?” he howls, scrambling for the remote to turn it off. “I just wanted to save a pretty girl from some deadbeats! Why am I being punished?”

“I don’t know! Tatsuki-chan was right, maybe I do hate badly-painted geisha!”

“I don’t know what that means!” Kon fumbles the remote looking for the stop button. He gives up and hits the power instead, throwing the entire apartment into solid darkness. Beside him, Inoue sniffles wetly and wipes what he really hopes are just tears on his sleeve.

Sitting in the dark with a pretty, emotionally vulnerable big-breasted girl. It’s the best chance he’s had in, hell, maybe ever? Nobody will blame him if he takes advantage, right? He’s only got a month. It can be like a bucket list thing! Grope one woman for each day of the calendar until he can’t do it anymore, die heroically and give Ichigo his body back like nothing ever happened. He still has time to be the Kon of his own dreams.

The revulsion he feels is unexpected, and it surprises him. He’s not sure if it’s part of the degeneration, but the idea of using his last few weeks in the world of the living for something like that—and in Ichigo’s body, Ichigo who was probably still blubbering in Soul Society like a brokenhearted idiot—it sours his stomach with nausea all over again.

Besides, he’s only got a few weeks, Kon tells himself with dull cheer. He should probably do something good with them. It’ll be kind of nice if someone other than Ichigo misses him when he’s gone.

“Hey, feel this,” Inoue says suddenly in the dark, and before Kon can panic a leg lands in his lap. It only takes a quick brush of his fingers against her calf to figure out what she means.

“Oh, gross!” Kon yells, rubbing his hand over short stubble. “It’s like steel wool down here! Inoue-san, you’ve let yourself go.”

“I know,” she laughs, still sounding nasal from crying. “If we’re not going to watch the clown movie, let’s wax our legs! I bought a new pot while I was at the grocery store.”

Kon hesitates. “You mean help you wax your legs, right? Because Ichigo has about seven hairs on his entire body.” He reaches over to click on the lamp, and does so just in time to see Inoue staring speculatively right at his crotch. “Inoue-san! This kind of ogling will not stand!”

“Sorry, Kon-san,” she replies meekly, snatching her gaze to the ceiling. He pats her scratchy leg in forgiveness.

“It’s okay. Now, let’s go tear out this forest you’re growing.”

It turns out that leg wax is a tricky business involving the perfect temperature, a lot of cloth strips, and Inoue taking off her skirt in the bathroom like it’s no big deal to show him how to use the little smoothing paddle. Kon forgets to be embarrassed pretty quickly after the first strip is whipped off a long stretch of skin, making Inoue yip in pain for an instant before she leans down to stare at the results.

“You’re pretty good at this,” she tells him encouragingly, and he’s ashamed to realise it’s the first real compliment he’s ever received from a pretty girl. “You can keep that strip as a trophy if you want.”

“Thanks,” Kon tells her, touched. “But if you’re going to let me keep your leg hair, you should probably just call me Kon from now on. Especially now that I’ve almost pissed my pants on your couch.”

Unbelievably, she smiles at him.

“Only if you call me Orihime—and finish my legs. No skimping on my knees, either!”

“I’ll have you know, knees are my speciality.” He rolls up his sleeves, steeling his muscles as the little paddle wavers in his grip. The ends of his fingers don’t feel right, but he has a job to do. Kon to the rescue! Waxing extraordinaire!

Kon knows exactly how pathetic he is, but he’s not going to let it get in the way of doing a good job. Wherever he’s going, if there even is anywhere for a mod soul to go after degeneration, he probably needs all the good karma points he can scrape together. A leg wax is a pretty fucking weird place to start though.

He finishes in record time, hands moving quickly in rote through the small ritual until there’s nothing left but smooth pink skin. Maybe he’s missed his calling. He soaks up the praise she heaps on him like a flower turning towards the sun.

“There’s still an unused cloth piece left,” Orihime says as they’re packing up, the words spoken almost to herself. She’s looking a little crafty when she turns to Kon, her grey eyes full of weird energy. “Hey, take off your shirt.”

Kon lets her wax off Ichigo’s three carefully cultivated chest hairs as thanks for a pretty fun night. When he walks back home, even the tremors don’t bother him as much. It’s a little bit like the universe just cut him some slack. Even if his chest does hurt like a son of a bitch.

With a fun night behind him and a good night’s sleep ahead, Kon counts himself pretty damn lucky.

 

* * *

 

Two days later when Ichigo’s phone dings with an incoming message, Kon is downstairs letting Yuzu and Karin dress him like a zombie in preparation for an upcoming Halloween party. It’s pretty on the nose and he tells them so, but their puzzled expressions quickly tell Kon that Isshin hasn’t filled them in on what was happening to him. Fuck. There’s no way he can tell them both. Firstly because he knows he’ll lose his shit if they cry—but what if he tells them and they don’t? What if they just shrug and throw his plush lion body in the trash when they’re done? Kon can’t figure out which one is more likely, and he hates that he did this to himself. He had so much time to be precious to this family, and all he did was complain and run away and hide.

Kon is depressed when he finally retreats to Ichigo’s room, and the message glows expectantly on the bed. He drops the damp towel he was using to wipe the paint off his face and grabs the phone, wondering which one of Ichigo’s friends didn’t get the memo that he was away.

 **[Inoue]:** _Do you like daifuku? There’s a new filling flavour to try at the local but I already have three favourites, and I can’t eat a pack of six and still fit my dinner in afterwards, and I already defrosted the fish! Are you busy?_

Attached to the message is a photo of an impeccably moisturised and hairless leg. Then a lion head emoji and a princess one separated by some sparkles. Kon’s eyes widen, his thumbs flying over the touch keyboard.

_I’ve never eaten daifuku before! Is it salty?_

The phone shows a typing bubble almost instantly. Kon feels guiltier than ever that he didn’t keep the phone with him.

 **[Inoue]:** _Meet me here right now!_

A map pin quickly follows, showing a dessert stall down in the shopping district. Kon quickly snaps a picture of his own face—Ichigo’s face—and sends it with an explanation of why he’ll need another five minutes to wash the black and purple smudges of paint off. Then he gets the hell into the bathroom and starts scrubbing.

Was it embarrassing to tell someone like Orihime that he hasn’t really eaten many kinds of food? When he was minding Ichigo’s body for him he ate Yuzu’s three square meals a day, but snacks were for people with money. Figuring he’ll just tell her he isn’t very hungry and spend some fun time with her, Kon dries his face and darts into his bedroom to pick out an outfit that doesn’t scream ragged artist apprentice. He ends up wearing a black t-shirt and one of Ichigo’s seventy pairs of skinny jeans, frowning at the purposefully torn knees. He tugs on some sneakers by the front door and yells about going out. The phone is warm in his pocket the whole way into town.

Halfway there, Kon’s legs give out. The slam into the ground is painful for an instant, and all his nerves seem to shoot with fire at the same time. That’s never happened before. Gasping on all fours, he’s grateful for the torn look of his jeans after all. Frightened, Kon works his legs a few times before he tries to stand. He’s okay. His heart is hammering, but he ignores it. He’s on the clock, and the last thing he wants is to put a sad look on Orihime’s face. He’s still got daifuku to eat, and maybe some of the fish she’s going to cook, and they really need to finish that fucking clown movie, really push through it like the brave warriors they were. He’s got things to do.

Kon jogs all the way into town, and nothing bad happens again.

“You made it!” Orihime says happily from the street corner, waving high in the air to get his attention. She’s wearing jeans this time too, dark blue ones that skim her heeled sandals and a flowy black laced top that Kon’s never seen before. “Look! We match!” Running up to him, she spins around in a pirouette that shows off the hem of her top and a flash of bare stomach, grabbing the edge of his shirt to compare the two fabrics.

Kon smiles down at the slightly faded colour of his shirt against Orihime’s newer one. She’s right, they’ve dressed like fucking brother and sister. Two ginger dumbasses heading out to eat whatever daifuku is. He lets her drag him toward the stand with tall boards depicting blobs of various colours.

It turns out that daifuku is delicious and he’s an idiot for never discovering it on his own. Orihime doesn’t tease him about it though—in fact she seems to take it as her personal mission to introduce him to every flavour on the menu. Kon decides on his fifth try that he likes the one with the strawberry in the middle the best, and lets Orihime shove the half she’d kept for herself straight into his mouth. Her fingertip is dusted with starch and grazes his lower lip, making him jump. Kon inhales instead of chews and almost chokes on the spot.

“So I’ve learned that strawberries don’t fuck around,” Kon wheezes later, hunched over on his thighs as they sit on a park bench. Orihime is rubbing his back in sympathetic circles though, and that makes everything worthwhile. “I’m really raking in these new experiences with you.” He wipes a streaming eye and smiles. “Thanks, Orihime.”

“Don’t thank me, I almost killed you!” she exclaims. Her face is too close to his and she smells like the sweet red bean paste she’d been eating. “What would Kurosaki-kun think of me if I hurt you while he was away?”

Kon laughs, but there’s an ache in his chest that has nothing to do with wayward snacks.

They end up walking around town with Orihime insisting they find him something to drink that isn’t tea, and soon just end up walking around for the hell of it, peering in shop windows and enjoying the sunshine. Kon is surprised by how much he enjoys himself, letting her drag him from place to place. Part of him wonders just how pitiful he must seem for Orihime to keep wasting so much time on him.

“You know,” she says at one point as he pulls a medallion necklace from a rack of displayed jewellery, “I’m really surprised that you haven’t done anything perverted yet.”

Kon passes her the necklace, smiling down at the cheap rows of bad knockoffs.

“If you miss it, I can honk your boob a little. I’ll even make the little horn noise.” He shakes his head when she holds the medallion against her skin. The flat disk of metal looks dull where it’s nestled at the top of her cleavage. “Not that one. You should get something real.”

Orihime frowns at the necklace, then back at him. Something shifts in her expression before her mouth firms into a stubborn line.

“This one will do,” she says, all but stomping away to present it to the cashier. Kon pretends he understands what just happened, but mostly he just stands there like a dumbass and hopes she’s not angry with him. That would really set him back in his great big plan to not be an asshole. Also it would really tank his mood, and he’s got enough things to be a depressed shit over.

But. Selflessness. Kon reminds himself several times until Orihime returns with a small pouch, one of those pull string ones that fits in the palm of his hand.

“Wow, thanks,” Kon said, and tries to put it in his pocket.

“Inside it! Inside!”

There’s a little bracelet inside, and it holds a cheap medallion like the one on the necklace she’d taken off with. When Kon looks up, he sees her already fastening the necklace clasp around her neck. She takes the bracelet out and puts it on his wrist before he can think of a reason to protest.

“We look like twins,” he says helplessly, staring at the little piece of fashion jewellery.

“We look amazing,” Orihime corrects firmly. Then, after a quick glance around to check if anyone is looking, she reaches out and grabs his pecs through his shirt with both hands—and makes the little horn noise. “Cheer up, Kon! I’m not leaving you alone until you tell me you’re having a good time.”

Her hands are warm through the black cotton of his t-shirt. She’s really got a grip on them. Kon stares at them, then her, then her hands again. Yeah, that’s definitely happening.

“I’m having the shittest time of my entire life,” he says earnestly, his eyes wide. “You’re fucking terrible at cheering people up. Squeeze a little more. Pinch my nipple a bit.”

Orihime flushes bright red and actually does it. Her brows are knitted in concentration and her tongue peeks out the corner of her mouth. An old couple walking into the store gasp in unison and walk right out again. Kon is having the time of his fucking life.

“Okay stop, stop, you’re going to get arrested.” He’s laughing and he can’t believe that actually happened. Daringly, Orihime grabs his ass and makes the loudest honking horn noise he’s ever heard in his life. The cashier waves at them to get out, and they do, spilling out onto the street laughing like complete idiots. Kon’s almost in tears trying to slap away what seems like twelve hands before she decides to start grabbing his dick or something. “Orihime! The shoe is on the other foot and I kind of like it!”

“I knew this would cheer you up! You’re a real perve, Kon.”

“You’re the one twisting my nipple like a sound dial!”

When she gasps and comes for him again with her little pinchy fingers, Kon ducks his shoulder and hoists her up over it, cackling like a madman as he runs down the street with her shrieking the entire way about how all the shit in her purse is going to fall out. She’s warm and heavy on his shoulder and almost boots him in the nuts twice before he can find a decent place to put her down.

They end up in the town park on the grass, Kon breathing like a winded thing and Orihime rubbing her sore stomach. She’s still laughing and her hair’s a big coppery mess of strands sticking to her face. He brushes some of it away before he can think better of it, before he can remember whose body he’s wearing.

Orihime catches his hand and plants it on her left breast. Kon almost has an instant heart attack. She lets it rest there for a few seconds until Kon remembers he’s supposed to be good now and pulls it away on his own.

“That’s for giving me the best afternoon in maybe forever.” Her lips part in a big smile. “And for almost killing you with the daifuku.”

She let him touch her boob! Kon knows he could die on the spot right then and he’d still be the happiest he’s ever been. No regrets. Staring at his palm, he can still feel the warm, full curve of her beneath her top. His face is almost luminous with embarrassment. Then, horrifyingly, his vision starts to wash with hot tears. Oh shit. Fucking Ichigo and his fucking weird hormones! Crying was only acceptable in his lion body! He couldn’t let Orihime think he was a sissy.

“Thanks,” he wobbles out. It’s the same hand with the bracelet. The bracelet she’d just bought him! “But you know it’s me, right? Stupid Kon? I’m not Ichigo. Not trying to say you don’t know the difference, but…that’s exactly what I’m saying. Just not in a dick way.”

Orihime sits up slowly. There’s nothing in her expression to betray her thoughts, but she doesn’t look mad. If anything she looks kinda sad, which makes him feel like absolute shit instantly. Why’d he have to ruin it? The afternoon has been nice! More than nice. It’s been—kinda perfect. But fuck it, of course he’ll ruin anything he gets his hands on. Ichigo’s hands.

“I’ve always known when it’s you and not Kurosaki-kun,” she says seriously. “Even back when we first met, remember? You kissed my hand and called me a pretty girl.”

“You were supposed to forget all that!” He waves his hands. “With the shinigami date rape gas!”

“That stuff never works on me for long,” she dismisses. “Which…is good, now you’ve just called it date rape gas. Kuchiki-san used to hit me with it all the time. One time she sprayed me just because I was having a sad day. I thought it was going to give me brain cancer.” She pats his knee twice, each impact almost like a slap. “I always know when it’s you! Today was about cheering up. Sometimes Tatsuki-chan is busy and I was feeling kind of lonely today. We had heaps of fun when you came to my house, so I thought, let’s spent time together again! But then you seemed a bit sad too, and I wanted to help.”

Kon knows his mouth is doing that ugly wobbly thing that happens just before he bursts into tears, and god damn it, he really tries to hold that shit in. But Orihime’s words make him feel so warm and seen that he can’t quite help it when two fat tears slide down his cheeks, hot and wet on his skin.

“You’re a really good person,” he whispers, his throat one long ache. “Sorry about my face right now. Ichigo’s an ugly crier.”

“It’s pretty ugly,” she agrees, and he laughs unexpectedly through his next hitching breath. “Let it out, Kon. Friends let friends get emotional. Then, when you’re feeling better, let’s go back to my place and finish that clown movie. I’ll cook us dinner!”

Orihime doesn’t know why he’s upset, and to his eternal relief she doesn’t even try to ask. When Kon’s sure he’s stopped humiliating himself, they get up from the grass and walk in the direction of her apartment. By then the sun has started to set, painting the sky in bright pink and pastel blue. The evening star is a gleaming jewel in the sky, and they follow it until the buildings obscure the view. Orihime tugs him by the hand when he dawdles a little, and Kon pretends he can feel the sensation of her fingers wrapped around his.

Kon knows it like a universal truth that he’ll miss her like hell when the time comes.

It hurts him to know now that she’s going to miss him, too.

 

 

* * *

  

They eat grilled fish with salad together at Orihime’s tiny table. Kon thinks it might be the nicest meal he’s ever eaten, even though she’s marinated the fillets in chilli and lime to such a degree that his mouth puckers and tries to fold in on itself. They laugh at each other’s red-rimmed eyes and clear both plates despite all the daifuku they ate.

Later, when she’s trying to set up the blu-ray player again, Kon washes the dishes in the small kitchenette and thinks he’d be happy to live that one perfect day over and over for the rest of his life.

Orihime frowns in concern when he sniffs loudly at the sink, but he tells her it’s just the chilli fumes still going up his nose.

 

* * *

  

They’re kind of inseparable after that.

She still has to go to work at the hospital—community volunteer stuff while she studies nursing, she tells him, which really means she barges in on sick people and cheers them up—and Kon has to look after the girls sometimes and work Ichigo’s part-time job for Ikumi-san when she’s really in a bind, but their time off is spent in each other’s company, usually texting when they’re not.

Kon doesn’t get any better or worse. Urahara checks on him frequently, and even if his face doesn’t brighten with evidence of a miraculous recovery, he does pat Kon’s shoulder gently and say his initial prognosis might have been a little too short.

It’s borrowed time, but to Kon it means more days with Orihime and her crazy-happy adventures, and that’s kind of amazing.

Still, it’s a bit sad that the best days he can ever remember having are coming right at the end.

Maybe he’s owed this kind of thing, he thinks one night, hands stacked behind his head as he stares at the ceiling of Ichigo’s bedroom. Pretty girls like Orihime only looking at him the moment he stops being an asshole. Ichigo’s body doesn’t hurt matters either, but…she doesn’t seem to really notice it. None of the wistful staring he thought she’d give him. Orihime truly doesn’t see Ichigo when she looks at him, and that’s something. It makes him want to ask about her feelings for Ichigo, whether they’ve changed or not, but hell, that’s not his business. Whatever they’ve been dancing around for years, she seems content to dance for a little while longer.

Probably better not to ask when he’s having _feelings,_  anyway. Lifting his hand, Kon stares at the cheap little bracelet she put around his wrist. It was just some dyed black leather string wrapped around a few times with a little gold coloured coin-type medallion hanging off it. Cheap stuff, the kind that breaks too soon and loses all its shine.

Orihime has a weird kind of intuition, Kon decides reluctantly, and hides the coin against his chest.

He misses Ichigo, despite all the confusion around occupying his body. The bedroom feels too big and quiet, and the house is kinda empty. There’s nobody to tell him to shut up and quit being dramatic, nobody to crawl into bed with, no goofy-looking smile directed at him when there’s nobody to judge just how much Ichigo actually likes his dumb company. Orihime could fill his head and heart up to bursting, but Ichigo is a kind of force in his entire existence. Hell, he’d be dead ten times over without him. Kon likes to think the reverse is also true. He’s pulled him out of enough depressive funks over the years. Especially the year and a half without his powers.

It’s strange, not having him right there to turn to. Maybe that’s why he feels like such a fake.

Kon’s thumbing open Ichigo’s lock screen before he can really think about it, calling a number that he’d been told never to dial—not even in emergencies. They all knew he’d abuse the privilege the first chance he got.

It answers after two rings.

“Kon?” Rukia says immediately, and just the sound of her voice makes Kon’s eyes well up. His breaths come short and fearful, a reaction he can’t explain. How many more times would she say his name? “Is everything all right?”

“Nee-san,” he says, swallowing around a lump. He clears his throat. “The range on this phone is insane! Urahara really gave Ichigo his best work. I was just thinking about you both—it’s been two weeks and Ichigo hasn’t come running back to kick me out of his body yet.”

“You miss him,” Rukia deduces, like he doesn’t have any secrets and never did. “Kon, you’re so sweet when you’re not blustering.”

“It’s a new thing I’m trying: Kon unplugged. Kon unmasked. Kon…undressed?” He waits for her to snort right into the microphone before he smiles. “Is he there?”

“Sleeping like an idiot, yeah. I was wondering if I should put his hand in a bowl of warm water. Has that ever worked?”

Kon sits up straight on the bed. “Hard to say. If he’s on a futon you’ll have more trouble, but if he’s in a raised bed a bowl of nice warm—not hot!—water will usually work if he’s had tea before bed.”

“He had some sake.”

Kon frowns. “Hit and miss, in that case. Probably fifty-fifty chances, since it can dry you up.”

“Hmm,” Rukia says, like she’s actually thinking about it. Then, without warning, “Ichigo told me you’re dying.”

“I figured,” Kon says, his face caught in a painful sort of smile. “You answered the phone.”

“Oh, Kon.” For a long moment there’s nothing but horrible breaths snatched back and forth over the line. “Kon, you’re family.”

“Nah,” he says. His laugh is watery. “I was a pain in the ass. Still am, ringing you this late because I’m lonely.”

“I don’t sleep as much as you’d think.” A rustling sound in the background, like sheets or clothing being moved. “Tell me what you’ve been doing. Tell nee-san your dirty little secrets.”

It’s a desperate, terrible thing, the gratitude he feels toward her in that moment. Someone to listen. Someone bigger than his own mind, his little voices and all the mistakes he’s afraid to make. All the things he can’t take back. So he opens his mouth in the dark and he tells her everything on his mind. Everything he can think of, about how he worries about Ichigo after he’s gone, and the girls being left alone when he’s out doing shinigami things. He talks about how his fingertips don’t really feel anything much anymore, and neither do his toes. How Isshin’s smile dropped away that morning when he didn’t realise he’d asked the same question twice in half an hour, with no memory of doing it. About how the day before he’d vomited without warning and his soul pill had come out—and how Yuzu had commented on the large crack in it before she shoved him back in Ichigo’s mouth.

And he tells her about Orihime; strange, beautiful, wonderful Orihime, whose smile and quirky fun makes him forget about all those things. He tells Rukia about the leg wax, the scary movie, the jewellery and how he bawled his eyes out in front of her and she didn’t even care. He tells her about the daifuku and the fun they’ve been having. Most of all, he tells her that Orihime never once looked at him and forgot he was Kon.

“No, she wouldn’t,” Rukia says wistfully. “That’s the kind of person she is. It’s a special thing, you know, being trusted by Inoue. With the exception of Ichigo, I’ve never met a more selfless and kind person. We’re lucky, Kon, to have both of them in our lives. I don’t—I don’t always feel deserving of them.”

“Me either.” His lips twitch. “Surprise.”

“Don’t put yourself down like that!” Her voice is loud, too loud for the dark intimacy of their conversation. “So you’re a pervert. You like boobs. Fine! Boobs are good! You’re also brave, and you’re kind, you’ve never taken a life despite some incredibly shitty circumstances of existence—you propped Ichigo up, you held his family together when he had to leave and his sisters were sad. You’ve tried to defend helpless people when you were viciously outmatched, you—Kon, you don’t deserve this. Take it from someone else who’s had to look down a long walk to a short end. I know you’ll think about all the things you did wrong, about how you’re probably finally getting what you deserve. I want you to know it’s not true.”

“I trashed my entire life,” Kon says shortly, his stomach pinched tight. “I did maybe five decent things this entire time—”

“How dare you disregard my feelings!”

“Nee-san,” he says, helplessly.

Rukia doesn’t stop, even when Kon wishes he could just hang up on her and put the pillow over his head. It’s all just death stuff, he tells himself furiously. Everyone’s nice when they know you’re going to fucking die. But she keeps going, telling him things about herself, about the soukyoku and the tower of penitence. She tells him about Kaien, and Byakuya, and duty. In rushed, at times broken words she lays everything out like a long carpet of regrets, unravelling to land at his feet like an offering. Or an invitation. Kon’s never heard her talk about such intensely personal things before—or anything, really. Rukia isn’t the kind of woman who just opens up at the drop of a hat.

“Nobody’s ever lived a perfect life, Kon,” Rukia says finally, her voice almost a whisper by then. “Nobody ever will. You’re just as entitled to happiness as I am, or Ichigo is. Even Inoue—and from the sounds of things, you’re making her really happy. So just keep on being happy, for as long as you can. Live a really good life, Kon.”

“Okay,” he says, hunched up against the wall by that point, his chin almost tucked onto his knees. “Okay, nee-san.”

“Okay,” she repeats. “Now get some sleep, and when Ichigo wakes up I’ll tell him you’re cutting his grass.”

“I am _not!_ ” Kon says hotly, but she’s already cackling and hanging up on him. He stares at the dark screen of the phone in wordless indignation.

Unbelievable. As if he’d be so dishonourable as to—to steal Orihime’s affections. He’d never!

Well. Not on purpose, anyway. Reluctantly putting the phone away on the desk, Kon rolls over on top of the covers and tries to breathe. Live a really good life, she said. Fine, he thinks resolutely, a little afraid to do just that. Time to shut that lame voice up that keeps telling him how shitty he is, and live.

For as long as he can, Kon decides to live.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

“So it’s a choice between drinking a cup of my own pee, or a cup of Kurotsuchi-taichou’s sweat?” Orihime is stroking her chin, deep in thought. She’s on her back on the couch while Kon sits on the floor, his back resting against the centre of it. Replacing batteries in all her remotes shouldn’t be a dire issue, but all she has is a massive bowl of loose ones and half of them are dead already.

“Yeah, or else Ishida gets turned into Aizen’s love slave for the next twenty years.”

“Aizen’s strapped in a chair though, isn’t he?” she asks skeptically.

“Don’t underestimate a horny man, Orihime. Chairs and belts are nothing compared to the siren call of a well-moisturised nerd.”

“Ishida  _could_  sew Aizen some kind of sex swing,” she allows. “Fine, I suppose I’d drink my own pee to save him. Kurotsuchi-taichou’s sweat would probably send me blind.”

“A wise choice,” Kon says solemnly, still sorting good batteries from bad. Most of them were too weak to hold enough of a charge for the television remote, let alone anything more useful. “Why have you kept all of these? Are you some kind of hoarder?” He waves a sole double-A battery at her, not looking back. Fingers pluck it out of his grip.

“I kept some in case they could be still used, but my old vibrator really chewed through this brand. You might as well just throw those out.”

Kon’s entire body locks up in surprise.

“Did you say vibrator?”

“Yes, my aunt sent it to me for my eighteenth birthday.” Kon looks back at her, cheeks luminescent with embarrassment, but she’s frowning at the ceiling. “We don’t really know each other and mostly she just pays my rent, but the card said every single woman should have one. I just wish she’d sent me a charger as well.”

Kon thinks hard about that for far longer than he probably should.

“It…it came in a sealed box, right?”

“Oh, eww!” Hands slap the back of his head in a flurry of laughing disgust. “It’s gone now anyway. I replaced it, because internal rechargeable batteries are environmentally conscious and convenient.”

Kon looks down at all the batteries in the bowl in his lap.

“How hard were you running that thing? You’re supposed to stop when smoke comes out, I think.”

“That’s quitting talk,” Orihime shoots back lightly, then laughs at her own joke like the little dork she is. Kon’s face is on fire by then. “I’m nineteen and I live alone! My scary aunt sends me sex toys! Come on Kon, I thought you were supposed to be a pervert.”

“I have categorically denied that label for years,” Kon says staunchly, then screams inside his own mouth when her lips push up against his ear.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what settings I use?” she whispers, and there’s batteries rolling in every direction. He’s pretty sure a weird dolphin noise burbles out of him as he scrambles away clutching his ears. Sitting up on her elbows, Orihime looks like a depraved angel wearing a green summer dress. Her laughter is delighted, and that’s probably the only reason Kon doesn’t start shouting about mean tricks and objectification. He wasn’t cutting anyone’s grass!

She eventually gets him to settle back down again with the promise of more gross hypothetical situations, which means Kon has to think hard about normal things and not how his pants are a little more uncomfortable than before. Who the hell just talks about vibrators so comfortably? That’s—private stuff. Isn’t it? Maybe his reputation has some actual perks to it.

Kon goes back to picking up all the batteries, starting over again now that his separate piles are ruined. Behind him, Orihime flops back down on the small couch and clears her throat authoritatively. He turns so he can see her in his peripheral vision.

“You have been dosed with an experimental aphrodisiac and the only way to return to your normal life is to have a night of desperate, sweaty passion with the first person you see,” Orihime says, scratching inside the neckline of her dress. “Up ahead is a fork in the road. One leads to Kurosaki-kun, and the other leads to…me. Which path do you take?”

Oh, no.

“Is it consensual?” Kon squeaks. “What—am I in the lion plushie? Am I in this body? Variables! Will I die if I just throw myself in the river and avoid making a decision?”

“Yes, no, yes, yes,” Orihime rattles off matter-of-factly. “Now choose, or else Yuzu-chan finds you with a massive erection and calls the police.”

That makes no sense at all, but Kon can’t deny the cold wash of alarm it gives him to imagine it. But he’s stuck between a rock and a hard—haha!—place, isn’t he?

“My stubbornly heterosexual side leans very heavily toward your path, Orihime, but I wouldn’t want our friendship to be ruined just because I’m high on sex drugs. Ichigo would probably forgive me all my sins, since he’s such a martyr—”

“I can be a martyr too, you know!” Orihime argues immediately. “I let my dead brother bite me so he wouldn’t attack Kurosaki-kun.”

“That was years ago, Orihime. Stop milking it.”

“Oh!” She slaps him up the back of his head with no hesitation. “So your choice is Kurosaki-kun?”

Kon’s face scrunches up horribly.

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Yeah, but only because I wouldn’t want pity sex from you. It’d make me feel bad afterwards and then I’d probably avoid you.”

There’s a brief, surprised silence behind him. Kon looks down at the batteries.

“Oh.” Her hand returns, but it’s not to slap him. Instead she pets his hair a little; her fingers pushing gently up through his messy spikes. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to avoid me.”

“Oh, cool,” he says in relief.

“It wouldn’t be pity sex, though.”

Kon blinks. “It wouldn’t?” His heart is hammering in his throat.

“No,” Orihime says happily. “I’d just use my  _souten kisshun_  and heal the drug completely out of your system!”

Kon sits in baffled silence for a few seconds. Why the fuck didn’t he think of that? He’s such an idiot!

“Did I just have hypothetical sex with Ichigo for no reason?”

“You hypothetically enjoyed it, too.”

Kon covers his face with his hands in defeat. Instead of the obvious out, he’d been thinking about sex, and batteries and drugs—

He pulls his head out of his hands.

“Hey, Orihime, what kinds of things can’t you heal? You’ve gotta have some limits, right?”

“Some,” she says immediately. “But usually I can’t change anything that isn’t living matter, or stuff that’s naturally occurring.”

“So you couldn’t heal an old grandma back into a young woman?” Kon asks slowly. “Or a worn purse back to looking like it was new?”

“Exactly.”

Kon knows it was always going to be out of the question, but hearing it directly from her is a strange punch in the stomach he doesn’t expect. Orihime would do it in a heartbeat, but she can’t fix the degradation of his soul pill. Technically it isn’t living matter, and it sure is old by normal standards. Spearhead has been over and done with for years, years and years. Oh, well. Not like he’s given it much thought anyway. So he sits there and lets her push her fingers around in his hair for a while, until he realises he lost count of the batteries yet again.

“I’m throwing all of these out,” he announces, “and then I’m going to go buy you a new pack.”

“Some of them are still good,” she persists, but he won’t hear of it. “At least let me give you money!”

Kon leaves without letting her give him so much as a hundred yen, openly flipping her off when she reaches for her purse. The door closes on her startled indignation, really bolstering his spirits.

Really.

Fucking batteries.

 

* * *

 

A day later, Kon is browsing Yuzu’s grocery list at the supermarket when a vaguely familiar guy with brown hair spots him at the other end of the aisle.

“Ichi-gooooooooooooo!!” the guy shouts, and yeah, now Kon remembers Keigo with absolute clarity. He’s forced to throw away his carry basket in time to catch the entire weight of the guy as he goes complete spider-monkey on him, legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck, the works. “Oh man, I’ve missed you!”

“Ugh,” Kon says intelligently, shoving his way free. “I’m not Ichigo. I’m Kon. Ichigo’s in Soul Society.”

“You wouldn’t fuck with a brother like that and lie to me, would you?” Grabbing Kon’s cheeks, Keigo looks deep into his eyes. “Ichigo, when will you just accept that I’m an affectionate free spirit?”

“I’m Kon, dumbass! K-O-N!”

Keigo lets go in a dismayed rush, still hyperactive and a little weird. There’s a couple of people watching them warily from the end of the aisle, probably because Keigo was being such a psycho. Nothing to do with him yelling.

“Maaaan, so it’s you? The other guy that minds his body? Kong?”

“Kon.”

“Kong,” Keigo repeats softly, cementing it in his mind forevermore. “Hey, can I hug you? Properly I mean, not in the stranglehold of gay confusion I just used.”

Oh, boy. Keigo has made some discoveries in the last couple of years, and none of them meant great things for Kon. But Keigo always gave off a vaguely lonely, desperate air whenever he came to see Ichigo in the past, especially when his spirit friends were in town. Plus Kon knows he’s personally touch-starved at the best of times. He stops bending to get his carry basket and shrugs.

“Okay.” He holds out his arms.

Keigo glides into his embrace like he’s coming home. Their hug is long, warm, scented with cheap cologne and surprisingly comforting, considering Kon doesn’t really know the guy that well. They’re of an even sort of frame so there’s no height awkwardness, and Keigo’s arms are nice around his sides. This would be what hugging Ichigo would feel like, probably.

Concerned by the idea that they’re two grown guys hugging and thinking about Ichigo, Kon squirms free. Keigo looks like he’s just attained enlightenment.

“Hey, thanks,” Keigo says, and he really seems to mean it. “I’ve been trying to get one of those for years. You’re a good dude.”

“Oh, uh, no problem. Hugs are…are good.”

Keigo helps him put his discarded groceries back in his basket, and even carries the twenty-four pack of toilet paper to the checkout for him. They part with friendly waves, and Kon is left wondering if what happened was creepy or kind of sweet. Maybe it was both, which is really just par for the course in his life so far.

Feeling oddly like he’s just done a good deed, Kon’s path home is happy.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

The sun is low on the horizon, mostly obscured by clouds. It’s drizzling strangely, and Kon is staring at his trainers. They’re wet on the toes, like he’s been walking through puddles. Around him, people are walking down the street, back and forth. They barely notice him.

Kon is wearing a t-shirt and jeans he doesn’t remember picking out for himself.

Fear is a fist in his stomach, hard as stone.

He’s alone.

He’s alone.

How did he get there?

Where is Dad?

No—no, he doesn’t have one of those. He’s not Ichigo. He’s not—

Kon pats his pockets down and feels the solid lump of his phone in one of them. His mouth is trembling as he looks at the list of contacts. He needs help. He doesn’t know where he is. Urahara can help, but he might hurt as well. Kon selects the name at the very top.

“Kurosaki Clinic, Karin speaking.”

“Karin,” Kon says, trying his hardest to keep the croak out of his voice. “It’s Kon. Is Isshin there?”

“He’s with a patient, like he is every single weekday between nine and five,” she replies blandly, but there’s a small shadow of curiosity in her voice. “What’s the matter?”

“I uh, I got kinda lost.”

“So just look at your phone map, dumbass.”

“It’s not that. I…I need someone to come get me, Karin.”

Something in his voice must give him away completely, because she goes silent on the other end for a moment.

“Are you hurt?” This time her voice is pure steel.

“No.”

“Has anyone threatened you?”

“No.”

“Is anyone with you right now?”

“No.”

“Do you remember how you got there?”

“No, I don’t,” he says, panicking, and wonders what she knows that he doesn’t.

“Okay. It’s okay,” she says, letting out a shaky breath. When she speaks again, her voice is a lot calmer. “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

“I—” Oh shit. His throat aches so tightly it feels like it’s going to close. “I don’t know? What day is today?”

Karin, bless her savage, protective little heart, walks him quickly through how to send her a map pin of his location. He’s only two blocks away, she says, but tells him to sit quietly until she can get there. Kon puts his phone away and backs himself against the brick wall of an apartment complex he doesn’t recognise, folding his shaking hands into his armpits to stay warm. The drizzle is turning to light rain, just enough to chill his skin. Inside his chest, his heart is thudding a low beat of pure dread.

What if this is it now, he wonders, blinking rainwater out of his eyes. What if he stops remembering everything? The world won’t fit together like it used to. Big, black holes everywhere, and him with no chance of finding his way around them all.

Hunching in on himself, trying to become smaller than Ichigo’s body will allow, Kon waits in the rain like any other stray left out in the cold.

When Karin comes, it’s not alone. Kon doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or ashamed when he sees Isshin and Yuzu bundled under the same umbrella, a big bright red one with white polka dots all over it. Their eyes are kind and concerned with no hint of unease, just like the professionals they were. Karin is leading the charge right toward him, and in an instant he feels stupid and guilty. They came all the way out for him and he’s not even hurt, really. Isshin is still wearing his white coat and stethoscope.

They take him back to the house, and when Yuzu heads for the kitchen to make him something hot and delicious to eat Isshin catches her shoulder with a big, gentle hand.

“Girls, it’s time we had a family meeting. There’s some things we need to discuss.”

“But Ichi-nii isn’t here,” Karin says warily, but her eyes shoot to Kon and linger on him. “We should—wait for him to come back.”

“Karin,” is all Isshin says, and her shoulders slump. Yuzu’s hands fly up to her cheeks, her eyes growing round with worry. She knows that tone in Isshin’s voice better than anyone. “It’s time you knew exactly what the next few weeks will entail.”

Kon’s stomach tightens to the point of cramping as they all look at him. He didn’t want this. He never wanted this.

The talk is terrible. Isshin starts out sombre and sympathetic, factual, but it’s his own girls he’s talking to. Kon knows there’s only so long he can keep that up for. Their faces go from rigid perseverance to open confusion—and then, as the words sink in, denial.

“He’s a mod soul,” Karin says, darting looks at Kon like he’s more object than participant in the meeting. He understands; he hasn’t moved in long minutes. “He’s supposed to last forever! We’re the ones that are supposed to die first.” Tightening her hands into small fists, she grits her teeth and snarls at the ground. “He’s supposed to miss us, not the other way around!”

“I’ll miss you anyway,” Kon offers, and her face utterly destroys him. Pretty, tough, terrifying Karin wells up in angry tears and covers her face with her hands. Yuzu only watches her, then him, and leans slowly into her father’s side.

The talk is terrible, and Kon can’t fix it.

It takes an hour and Isshin realising he should do his paperwork for the afternoon before the girls both look up at Kon with betrayed eyes. It’s the kind of devastation he never really planned for. He wasn’t supposed to be important. Sure, to Ichigo, but the girls were always meant to be something he only occasionally orbited. Instead they look at him like he’s a real stand-in for their brother, and he knows he’s not.

But he opens his arms anyway, sad and sorry for the whole thing, and they run to throw themselves into his hug. With a fifteen year-old tucked on either side of him, Kon lets them bury their faces in his chest and sob until his t-shirt is wet with their tears. They cry for a long time, and Kon wipes his own wet cheeks in Karin’s hair.

“You know,” Kon sniffles long minutes later, blinking his vision clear, “this is probably a bad time, but I wanna go see Orihime. Can we wrap this up?”

“God, you’re insensitive,” Karin rasps, shooting him a bloodshot glare. “We’re having feelings here. Feelings about you forgetting about us and not being able to move and—did you just say Orihime? Inoue Orihime?”

He tells them then, since he can’t think of any other distraction that could pull them away from the rabbit hole of his impending death quite like finding out that he and Orihime are new BFFs. Except as he tells his story—the edited one without the adult stuff—something strange starts to occur. The girls sit up straight, knuckling tears out of their eyes. Their expressions are almost incredulous.

“Kon, are you gay?” Yuzu asks as he shows them Orihime’s leg photo. “After all of your woman-chasing exploits, did you figure out you were gay?”

“I’m not gay! I mean, everyone’s a little bit gay for Ichigo, but that’s different—”

“Then why,” Karin interrupts, pointing at the photo and pinching the screen to zoom in, “have you not tried to tap that? She’s into you, stupid! Inoue Orihime, goddess of cleavage and nicest person in the entire world, sent you a nude, undressed in front of you, cooked you dinner…”

“She grabbed my ass one time too,” Kon adds, even as he laughs at their faces. “It’s not like that! We’re good friends, because I’m finally being a good person. She knows I’d never make a move. That’s trust. You two are just being gutter-minded little gremlins.”

“That’s you!” Yuzu protests, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. She shares Ichigo’s ugly crying face and habit of going blotchy and red, so she’s in a total state as he frowns down at her. “Really Kon, think about it! You both love spending time together, you’re physically comfortable in each other’s presence, she makes you dinner and buys you presents, you—ohmygosh, she doesn’t know you’re sick, does she?”

Stomach dropping, all he can do is shake his head. Karin knocks her forehead on his shoulder in mute frustration.

“I don’t want to make her sad,” he explains, though he wonders if he means he doesn’t want to be sad when her happy expression fades into grief. “I just thought I might…write her a letter? You know, before it gets too bad.”

“Sure, if you want to go down in history as a selfish jerk.” Karin doesn’t mince words. “Orihime is important to you, right?”

“Right.”

“And you love and respect her, right?”

“Right. Well, I don’t know about love, I mean, that’s pretty—”

“Then you’ve gotta tell her the truth.” Yuzu squirms up onto her knees and grabs his face with both hands. Her eyes are luminous with fresh tears. “Imagine if it was the other way around, and you didn’t say stuff you should have because you thought you had time for it later?”

“Aw, kid,” Kon said, and feels like a complete asshole. He wouldn’t have even told them if Isshin hadn’t made the decision for him. Maybe in facing all of this, he’s really just been a total coward. A selfish loser, just like Karin said. He hugs them tightly again, an arm for each girl, and receives an arm across his stomach squeezing him back in return. “Sorry to make you worry. Ichigo would say something comforting and nice, probably.”

“Ichigo would lie through his teeth and say that everything was gonna be fine,” Karin mutters, and that’s touching a well of misgivings Kon thinks is probably best left for another time. “Kon, you can tell us stuff. Even bad stuff. We’re pretty tough when we’ve gotta be, and we’re gonna look after you.”

“Yeah,” Yuzu says earnestly. “We’re gonna protect you. I’ll even make your favourite foods! We’ll start writing things down so even if you forget for a while, it’ll be there. Times, places, and we’ll turn on location tracking on your phone…”

They go on and on like that, between them already sorting out a care plan for him. Kon looks from one to the other, the three of them all tangled up on the couch together, and he wonders if they know just how much like their brother they really are.

They’re a good family, Kon thinks. Kindhearted and tough. He knows exactly how lucky he is that Rukia gave him to Ichigo that day, that they shoved him in that plush lion and gave him a whole new life, all of his own. A home. A family.

Yeah.

He’s damn lucky.

 

* * *

 

“You just seem kind of sad, even when you’re happy,” Orihime tells him one day, completely out of the blue. They’re chopping vegetables together in her tiny kitchen, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip while they work on getting the slow cooker ready. She’s making chicken noodle soup, which Kon isn’t sure about, but he likes the crunch of celery falling under his knife and it’s not delicate enough work that he can’t do it. The tremor in his hands seems to have faded in favour of patchy numbness as the days had gone on, like the last sparks in his nerves there have started to go out.

“What’s sad is how blunt this knife is. When’s the last time you sharpened them?”

“I’m serious. Are you unhappy?”

Kon keeps his eyes pinned to his work and doesn’t think about Yuzu’s words. Not one bit.

“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” he says, and means it. “I guess I just know I won’t be in this body much longer. Ichigo won’t be gone forever, and then—” it’s too close to what he doesn’t want to say, but he’s been thinking about it for days, “—you’ll be able to have all this fun with him instead.”

They chop in silence a while longer. Orihime’s fingers are careful around the chicken as she separates it and drops it in the pot. Kon wonders if that was too far in the direction of the untouchable topic of her feelings for Ichigo. When he passes her his portion of celery, he has trouble gauging the warmth of her skin.

She doesn’t let his hands open to pass her the vegetables. Instead, she cups her hands around his and looks up into his face. Her grey eyes are bottomless; her mouth a small pink rose of bitten-down hesitation. Kon feels like apologising for anything and everything.

“Kurosaki-kun doesn’t like me the way that you do, Kon.” Her hands relax, and she takes the vegetables onto her chopping board, tipping them into the pot at last. She hands him some carrots. “I don’t think he ever will. But that’s okay. The last thing I ever wanted was for my feelings to be a burden on him. But you’re different, and I want you to know I love the time we’re spending together. Even when we just do silly stuff like waxing, or eating daifuku. I’ll…be a little bit sad too, when Kurosaki-kun comes back.”

Kon stares at her for a long time. He’s not sure if he should say something, or nothing at all. Play it cool. Be a good guy. And maybe most importantly of all: don’t let Orihime become too attached to him.

Maybe he should turn around and just leave.

Would that be kinder?

Fuck, he was so sick of being kind.

With his half-numb hands full of carrots and eyes wide open, Kon leans over and kisses her mouth, soft and quick and chaste. Her lips are slightly slick from the remnants of gloss, and he tastes it on his own when he pulls away, red-faced and startled by his own boldness. Her eyes are blank with surprise for an instant. Slowly, her face colours to match his own.

Sorry, Kon thinks. He should say sorry. But nothing comes out. He lets the carrots be pulled from his hands and watches her make short work of the remaining ingredients. The water and stock are dumped in over the top of everything in record time, seasoned and stirred and ready to cook for a few hours. She’s washing her hands vigorously under the faucet in utter silence while Kon panics. He wasn’t sorry, but should he say it anyway? Was she angry? Embarrassed? Scared?

He’s ready to back up and go home when Orihime dries her hands and slides them over his shoulders to clasp around the back of his neck. They’re hot and still a little damp from the water, and he feels them more clearly than anything that’s touched him in the last few weeks. She leans in slowly, a small frown knitting her brows.

She stops just a few inches shy of his mouth and stalls there, like she doesn’t know what to do now.

“If it’s because I’m him,” Kon starts to say in the space of their breath between them, because he’s a fucking self-saboteur, “I get it. I mean, I won’t be offended. It’s still his body, it’s probably weird.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…” Orihime gulps a little. “Are you allowed to?”

“Oh. Oh,” Kon realises all at once. “Yeah, I’m allowed. Ichigo just told me not to get anyone pregnant with his little weird ginger babies. Which, you know, was kind of presumptuous if you think about it, it’s not like I was planning on running out to have sex with random women or something—or, or anyone! I wasn’t thinking about sex at all! Not with you! But not because I wouldn’t, but just… Oh man, sorry, I—”

Orihime shuts him up in the best way: pushed up slightly on her tiptoes, her lips a warm, gentle pressure with just the tiniest tip of tongue against the corner of his mouth, like she didn’t quite dare do it. Her hair smells like shampoo and stock from the soup steam. It slides like water through his fingers as he reaches out to hold her.

Kon is dying and it’s the most exhilarated, the most present and real and alive that he’s ever felt. Right there in that tiny kitchen, kissing a determined princess who smelled like salty chicken.

Things escalate faster than he intends. A kiss becomes curious fingers tugging shirts out of waistbands, his lips on her cheek, her earlobe, her jaw. His hair is tousled and tugged when he slides his still-sensitive palms up under her buttoned blouse, mapping the shallow dips of her ribs beneath her skin, finding the stiff wire of her bra cups. The barrier of them is probably what makes him think, even with her thigh hitched over his hip and the urgent, throbbing pressure in his too-tight jeans. He pulls his mouth from the smooth skin under her jaw and tries to get his breathing under control. The room feels too damn hot. Damn Ichigo and his nineteen year-old hormones. Shouldn’t they be sorted out by now?

“Maybe,” he manages to force out, “maybe this is going kinda fast?”

“You’re right,” Orihime says almost immediately, even though her eyes are glazed and keep staring at his mouth. Her lips are a deep pink and a little puffy from being bitten. “We even skipped over the first date and got right into the horny stuff. But more importantly, my underwear today isn’t sexy at all.”

Kon squints at her breasts, which are actually heaving a little under her blouse as she breathes. He didn’t think that actually happened. He can’t see her bra through the fabric, but through the straining button gap he can tell it’s white and probably cotton. While he’s studying her chest, she scratches her nails lightly over the small of his back. Tingles run all the way up his spine, and he’s embarrassed by the sound he makes. She strokes him down like a jittery colt, her leg sliding away to the floor. Kon is in heaven by that point, his cheek dropped down against her hair.

“I could still help you out,” she offers, sliding her hands down and around to tuck her fingers inside the top of his jeans. “I’ve always wanted to get a guy off. Nobody seems to want to date me! It’s like everyone knows I had a crush on Kurosaki-kun in school, or they’re too intimidated to try. Maybe my boobs are too big.”

Kon is giggling before he can help himself, his shoulders shaking against her while she makes curious noises that quickly dissolve into annoyance when he doesn’t explain himself. She’s the least self-aware and somehow the most precious person he’s ever met, and he’s silently laughing so hard at her by then there’s tears swimming in his eyes.

“I take it back!” she announces, throwing her hands up and turning around to leave the kitchen. “Stupid boys who laugh at me don’t get jerked off! I’m not putting up with this.”

Kon lets her get as far as the corner of the bench before he swoops in, wrapping his arms around her middle from behind. When he squeezes both of her breasts through her shirt, he makes the little horn noise against her ear. Sure, he’s still laughing a bit, but who can blame him?

“That’s not going to work on me,” Orihime huffs—and starts unbuttoning her shirt. She slides one of Kon’s hands inside her bra cup and leans her head back against his shoulder. “Nope. Completely immune to any and all clown honking noises. You could squeeze my boobs all day and I wouldn’t be affected at all.”

“Okay, two things,” Kon says, pushing his flushed cheek against hers. “First, everyone knows you were, are, whatever, in love with Ichigo. We know it like we know the sun rises each morning. Secondly, I would be honoured to squeeze your boobs for the rest of the day while telling you how amazing you are. I mean, you’re almost as weird as I am! That automatically makes you the second best person ever.”

“Second?”

“Well yeah, because I’m obviously first.”

“That’s not very chivalrous of you,” she says doubtfully. “I should be first. I let you touch my boob.”

“Like it’s a hardship!”

“Maybe it is! Can you read my mind?”

“No, but your nipple is stabbing me in the hand right now, so I’d say you’re into it.” Kon will die before he admits that he’s practically sweating with how turned on he is. Literally, he will probably die before that happens. Orihime spins around in his arms, ejecting his hand and scowling up at him. It’s completely ruined by the sparkle of laughter in her eyes.

“You’re pretty confident for a teddy bear.”

“I’m a lion,” Kon replies, wounded. She clucks her tongue.

“Lions would throw me over their shoulder and carry me away to my bedroom.”

“Oh I know what you’re doing, you sexy devil, but in the interests of protecting your ugly underwear and uh…stuff, of the two of us I have decided to be the bigger man.” Straightening his shoulders, still pitching an absolute tent in his jeans, Kon puffs out his chest. “The much bigger, virile, devastatingly amazing man.”

“Don’t you mean handsome?”

“It’s what’s inside that counts! God, you’re shallow.”

She tries pinching the hell out of him in retribution, which instigates a slap-fight as Kon tries to keep her from getting her little crab claw fingers on his oversensitive skin. He’s going to have a hard time running if she tries for a full-on attack, so Kon tries for a little technique he calls the vanity distraction.

“Your hair smells like instant noodles,” he tells her, just as she darts in for that ticklish bit under his ribs. Orihime stalls so hard she almost loses balance and headbutts him in the shoulder. “I mean, I’m into it, but it’s making me hungry.”

Giving him a suspicious squint, she backs up to grab two handfuls of her long hair and brings them up to her nose. Her eyes widen in horror on the first inhale.

“It really does,” she whispers, already backing away toward the bathroom door. “I’m showering this out! You can make yourself comfortable, just don’t start watching any of the shows in my queue that I’m halfway through. You can delete Mr. Robot though. Really misleading title!”

She’s gone before he can so much as adjust his fly, the door clicking shut. Kon wonders if he’ll ever stop cutting his own legs out from under him. Still, he thinks things were probably flying along too fast. Orihime seems to like fast, but it’s still Ichigo’s body. He doesn’t think Ichigo ever intended for him to actually have…sex. With people other than himself, anyway. They had a solid agreement around whether masturbation counted as funny business, and long ago decided as long as he didn’t actively tell Ichigo about it, they were cool.

Awkwardly making his way to the couch, Kon flops down onto the cushions and stares at the ceiling, arms thrown up over his head and legs hanging over the edge. Maybe if he thinks about boring things, his mind over matter approach will take the wind out of the sail in his pants. Or the pole out of his tent. The fire out of his chilli?

Kon lays there thinking of so many different variations of how to lose his erection that he greys out for a while into a lull of white noise. Self-meditation for the horny. It’d kill some time at least until Orihime got out of the bathroom.

Orihime. Inoue Orihime. She sure was something else. Kissing him! Kon! Mod soul Kon! Little better than Ichigo’s annoying sidekick for the longest time, trying desperately to get anyone’s, everyone’s attention. Yelling to pretty girls, yelling to Ichigo, yelling to nee-san, getting caught up in all their troubles and usually creating more than he tries to fix. Kon the distraction, the irritation. The spare part. The one who escaped execution and couldn’t kill to commit to his freedom. Mod Soul Kon, kissing Inoue Orihime.

Kon knows he’s in love, despite what he told Karin and Yuzu. He also knows it takes little more than a kind word and a smile for him to fall for anyone. But she was different, she was someone who could have her pick of all the guys out there…and she chose him. Goofy, blustering Kon who pretended for the longest time to be a huge pervert, some worldly guy, only to blush and panic at the first forward show of real interest. In his defence, he never expected any. Jeez. The world sure had a funny way of working out. Or she just had really low standards.

Listening to the rush of water coming from the bathroom, Kon shuts his eyes and feels the tension in his stomach swarm from sexual frustration to a strange, queasy knot of dread. Feels a lot like dread, anyway.

The urge to vomit is upon him before he can do more than roll to the side. His vision flickers as the pill is rejected from Ichigo’s brain-stem, tendrils of nerve connections falling away, pushing him back through tissue and flesh, back into his oesophagus. Ichigo’s own body takes care of the rest and Kon is sent gushing out of the body’s mouth in a spray of hours-old tea and cereal. His pill rolls unheeded across the carpet until he hits the leg of Orihime’s entertainment unit hard enough that he hears his casing crack dangerously loud. Something falls off. The chip of his protective coating looks massive to his double vision, strange and warped from his core form.

Up ahead, Ichigo’s body is staring vacantly at the floor, almost falling to the carpet. Its arm is hanging off the edge. Vomit draws a milky line down the corner of its mouth.

Kon has enough time to feel the pure, cold terror of oblivion before it drags him into the dark.

 

* * *

 

Awareness.

“…for calling me.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. My rikka just kept smashing and smashing, every time I tried it just wouldn’t reject it.”

“You know your limits.”

“I had to try. He’s…”

Oblivion.

 

* * *

 

Awareness.

He’s small. Cold.

A man with a striped hat looks down at him with an enormous whiskered face. His eyes hold secrets and shadows.

“These will come more often as his condition worsens. It may be time to put him back in the lion. If he falls in front of a bus or down some stairs—”

“Then it’s a good thing my dad’s a doctor.” The new voice tugs on a string in the back of his mind. Somewhere, that voice has a home inside him. “Put him back in, Urahara.”

“Very well,” the man—Urahara—sighs. Something about him seems familiar, too. “But for the record, this is only going to hurt more in the end. For all of you.”

The other voice moves into his field of foggy vision. A smear of orange and black, and the most startling brown eyes he’s ever seen. He knows those eyes.

“We’ll heal,” says Kurosaki Ichigo, taking him from the palm he rested in. “Kon won’t. Get my body.”

Oblivion again, but this time there’s relief, too.

Ichigo would fix this.

He always did.

 

* * *

 

Kon opens his eyes and doesn’t know where he is for a moment. What happened to Orihime’s house? The soup?

Reaching up to rub his eyes, he rolls over in bed. It’s Ichigo’s bed. He knows it by the groan of the springs, by the scent of its pillow. When he blinks to focus, there’s a familiar face looking back at him from the desk chair. The lamp casts a golden slant across his blazing brown eyes. His half-smile is fond, set in a tired face.

“Ichigo,” Kon whispers, his throat closing up with too many emotions. He pushes himself upright with clumsy hands. “I think—something bad happened.”

“Bad enough they called me down from Soul Society,” Ichigo agrees, his chin resting on the back of the chair. “Not as bad as you’re thinking, though. Your pill rejected from my body and you knocked yourself out on a piece of wood at Inoue’s house, dumbass. It’s accelerated your condition a little, from what Urahara was saying, but you’re not pushing up daisies just yet. You’re still okay for a while.”

“For a while,” Kon repeats, pulling his legs out of the blankets and turning to face Ichigo. His stomach hurts a little and there’s a strange shake inside him that doesn’t owe anything to his health. He’s scared, and worse, Ichigo seems to see right through him down to that shaking core. “How long has it been? How’d I get back here?”

“About a day. I jumped into my body to get us home and clean. Thanks for throwing up on my favourite t-shirt, by the way. Inoue’s still probably scrubbing the carpet at her house.”

Kon jolts with horror. _Orihime ._

“Does she know?”

Ichigo swings off the chair and comes over to sit beside him. The hand he rubs through Kon’s hair is sympathetic.

“When she couldn’t heal you she called Urahara for help. He told her everything.” His sidelong glance is a little unkind. “Probably the hardest I’ve ever seen her cry. Dick move, Kon. How could you let her find out like that?”

Turning his head away from Ichigo, Kon stares at the wall and wills his mouth not to tremble along with the rest of him.

Orihime knows. She knows and she knows he kept it from her on purpose. If he was in her shoes, the moment he stopped crying he’d be furious. Ichigo was a cake walk by comparison. Ichigo would just yell and then get over it. But Orihime…she’d had way too much sadness already. The last thing he’d ever wanted to do was make her cry.

But he’d been selfish. If he really wanted that he should have just kept walking away that night in town. No clown movie. No friendship. Just nothing.

Ignoring Ichigo’s question, Kon shoves himself to his feet and looks at the clock. Almost seven. He’d lost a little over a day, then. Almost a day and a half. That’s too long for Orihime to sit alone thinking about what a massive asshole he is for lying. Testing his limbs, they feel the same as they had before the fall. He’ll be okay to make the walk.

“Yeah, you’re not going anywhere tonight,” Ichigo says, and clamps strong hands on his shoulders. “Get back in bed and sleep the last of this off. Urahara put a kidou alarm on you if you reject again and there’s nobody around, but if you try running off now you’ll probably only make it about a kilometre before you come out again.”

“Get off,” Kon complains, shrugging his hands away. “I’ve gotta go explain.”

“So text her,” Ichigo says irritably. “From what I saw on my phone, you’ve been doing that a lot.”

“What, you jealous?”

The snort Ichigo makes is so offensive that for a moment Kon sees absolute red. He doesn’t know if his derision is because Kon is pathetic or Orihime is so unattractive to him, but he’s under Ichigo’s hands and out the door before he can recover. He’s caught again in the hallway and hauled bodily back into the bedroom. Kon doesn’t have a chance of overpowering Ichigo in his shinigami form, but he tries anyway. Maybe he could distract him and get out the window, or—

Ichigo throws him down onto the bed and pins him there, but instead of anger he just looks confused.

“Why are you fighting me? I was worried about you!” When Kon just stares up at him uncomprehendingly, Ichigo’s expression loses some of its remoteness. The bridge of his nose does that scrunchy thing Kon knows means he’s really upset. “Urahara called and I thought you’d died while I was up there doing stupid field exercises with Byakuya. Instead you’re still alive and you’re already tripping over me to leave.”

“…sorry I’m alive?” The hands on his shoulders are shoving him into the mattress so hard one of the bad springs is groaning a little under his spine. “No wait, sorry people had to see your vomit face because I rejected.” Ichigo’s expression wavers. Nope. Try again. Kon exhales a long breath.

Maybe Orihime could wait a bit longer.

“I missed you, Ichigo. Really. I even rang nee-san to talk to you one night, but she was busy making you piss yourself while you slept.”

“That was  _her?!_ " Ichigo yelps, immediately betraying himself. His cheeks go tomato red with indignation. Kon thinks it’s a fascinating colour right up until he realises his cheeks probably do that too. “Two dishes of sake and an early night, and now Renji thinks I need diapers because Byakuya actually tells that pineapple fucker everything.”

“I gave her some tips,” Kon admits. Ichigo’s look is absolutely filthy with misgivings.

“Of course you did. You always liked Rukia better.” But his hands relent on his shoulders, and Ichigo tips over to sprawl on the bed alongside him. “I’m not kicking you out of the bed while you’re recovering, but I’m not sleeping on the floor. Deal with it.”

“But I’m not recovering,” Kon says, and Ichigo stops fussing with the pillow for a moment. “I’m not saying that in a self-pity way, I just mean…you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ichigo jerks his chin at the desk. “Get the lamp.”

Kon gets the lamp. The resulting darkness is full of familiar breaths and the rustling of sheets, but they’ve never slept while Kon was in Ichigo’s human body. There seems to be a lot more elbows and knees jabbing him than one person could possibly possess.

“Somehow this is a lot gayer than it ever was in my plush body,” Kon grunts as they try to fit together. Ichigo starts throwing his sandals across the room and ripping off his outer layers while in the bed, which to Kon says he has really poor planning skills. “This bed isn’t big enough unless we cuddle, Ichigo.”

“So we cuddle,” is the stubborn reply. Lean arms slip over his middle, because Kon is a back sleeper and Ichigo prefers to fall asleep on his side. They end up in a half-spoon of extremely male closeness. “I can at least promise I won’t wet the bed this time. Asshole.”

Kon just reaches up onto the desk for his—Ichigo’s—phone and flicks through his recent messages. Nothing new from Orihime. Maybe she thinks texting after what happened is as much of a jerk move as he does. Or she just doesn’t want to speak to him ever again. Not like she’d have to hold out long, he thinks, then cringes down on the flood of guilt that gives him. He hurt her. Finding humour in it is cheap.

Ichigo budges over until he can see the phone screen as well. Kon doesn’t stop scrolling up and down, but he does slow his motions so he can read.

“I can’t believe she sent you all this stuff.” Ichigo sounds confused. “I didn’t know she was funny. She never jokes with me.”

“Probably because you’re a stooge.”

“Fuck off. I mean it, though. She even bought you a bracelet so you both match.”

“Yeah, just don’t go throwing it in the trash once you get your body back.”

Ichigo is squashed up almost cheek to cheek against him, so Kon feels the little inhale he makes.

“I won’t.”

Kon puts the phone away after another moment of fruitlessly scrolling. The darkness is familiar and warm, just like Ichigo. It gives him back something he’s been missing, knowing he’s right there. They were the original partnership, after all.

Kon and Ichigo against the world.

Well, sort of.

“Night, Ichigo.”

“Goodnight, Kon.”

Maybe in another life.

 

* * *

 

It takes him a whole extra half-day to summon the nerve to walk to Orihime’s apartment. The spirit was willing, but…well, no. Who is he kidding? He’s petrified. The best he was going to be able to do is throw himself on her mercy. He’s a liar and a shitty person. He set her up for a horrible fall and the only thing that saved her was one unscheduled rejection and a pill injury he really couldn’t afford.

Ichigo ended up telling him a few extra things Urahara had told him the day before. Stuff like how he probably won’t fully degenerate until he’s right at the end of his life, which means that once it happens, it might happen fast. That what’s happening to him is the kind of heralding instability that shows he’s almost worn out. So his feet feel kinda wooden when he walks, because his toes don’t feel much. The tips of his fingers are almost completely gone, too. The whole first knuckle of his thumbs may as well not exist to his nerves. He’s clumsy and forgetful now, and sometimes he vomits his pill out, but he’s still himself.

He’s got time, Kon tells himself optimistically. He doesn’t know how long, but nobody ever does, right?

He’s jaunting along the sidewalk trying to distract himself from his case of anxiety when the air in front of him rips apart like an old sheet, revealing boiling darkness inside. Then a hollow jumps out.

Kon doesn’t know Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez personally, but Ichigo has only ever mentioned one hollow with blue hair and he thinks this guy might be him. Freezing on the spot, Kon watches the rip in the air close up as the hollow makes a direct beeline in his direction. Blue hair, half mask, black clothes, white belts, and a sheathed sword that looks long and well-cared for. It’s probably sharp enough to chop him in half. Why the fuck does this shit always happen to him?!

Grimmjow gets within three paces of Kon and stops dead. His nostrils flare like he’s scenting prey. Kon definitely feels like prey.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Kon,” says Kon, because his name is Kon. God, he’s terrified. He’s pretty sure the guy is an arrancar. “Are you here to give Ichigo a hard time? Because I think I’m honour-bound to say you have to go through me first, and I’m…kinda tired.”

The slitted scowl he receives for that is in no way threatened, which is further proved when Grimmjow gets right in his face and squeezes his jaw until his mouth pops open like a frog. The weird fucker starts looking into his mouth like a farmer examining the teeth of a new horse.

“Soul doesn’t smell right,” Grimmjow says, angling his head this way and that. “Smells like something spoilt.”

Kon jerks his head free and rubs his jaw. He’s surprised he was able to do that much. Without a doubt, he knows this arrancar could kill him with his little finger.

“That’s offensive. Accurate and offensive. I’m not a real soul.”

“You’re dying.”

Kon stiffens. “How the hell—”

“Eaten a lot of souls,” Grimmjow says, like that explains everything. His face is caught in a kind of curious snarl, which shouldn’t be an actual expression and somehow is on his face. “Want me to kill you? Save you some time.”

“Nah, I’m good with it. Living in the moment, you know.” Kon thinks fast and makes a decision. “Hey, do you think you could come back again in a few weeks? Ichigo’s gonna need a big distraction by then.”

A hungry, soul-eating murderer he might be, Grimmjow seems to quickly piece things together. There’s a strange fidgety energy about him all of a sudden. His expression closes up abruptly as his shoulders straighten up.

“Thought I might just drag you with me, make Kurosaki give me a decent fight. Think he’ll want one more after you’ve croaked, huh?”

“Definitely. Ichigo doesn’t know what to do with himself when he’s sad, but put a sword in his hand and he’ll kill everything in sight.”

Bloodthirsty killer or not, Kon’s pretty sure the guy just gets lonely and likes to force Ichigo into spending time with him. Well, maybe. It could just as easily be about killing him. Or both. Whichever it is, Grimmjow looks like Kon’s just killed his buzz and simultaneously given him something to chew on. Stuffing one hand into his pocket, he grabs the air behind him and tears it open again.

“You didn’t fuckin’ see me here today, fake soul.”

“I’ve already forgotten you.”

“Rest in peace, asshole.” Grimmjow leaps into the black tear.

The hole closes, and then Kon is entirely alone. A little bewildered by the exchange, he resumes his walk to Orihime’s place.

At least that one didn’t try to hug him.

 

* * *

 

When Kon knocks on Orihime’s door, he doesn’t expect her to answer. Whether she’s going to ignore him or she’s not home at all, Kon doesn’t expect the door to open and let him in.

For a long while, he’s right. Maybe he should have messaged ahead. But just as he’s wondering if he should just sit down and wait, the locks tumble heavily, all three of them, and the door opens slowly.

“Sorry,” Orihime says timidly. She doesn’t look like a weeping wreck. “I thought it might be Kurosaki-kun coming to give me bad news.” With the door open wide he can see she’s wearing a dressing gown, belted tightly around her waist. Her hair is wet and messy, like he’s interrupted her shower. It’s a little how he expected her to come out of the bathroom two days ago. What he’d give to be able to delete the time between then and now. “Come in, Kon-san.”

Kon winces. They were back to that?

“Maybe I shouldn’t intrude,” he says, taking a wobbly step back. “I wanted to come explain, a-and apologise and grovel a lot I guess, but if you’re okay then I’ll just leave you alone. Sorry to bother you, Or—Inoue-san.”

She looks back at him with sad, unsurprised eyes.

“Just tell me one thing,” she says, and his shoulders hunch in anticipation. Her fingers grip the edge of the door so tightly her fingernails blanch. “Why couldn’t you trust me? Is it because I smile so much? Because I seem dumb? Useless? Unreliable? Why does nobody ever trust me when it’s bad?”

Kon stares. “That’s…that’s about six things.”

“It’s  _one thing._ " Her eyes are shining with tears now, growing a little bloodshot. Her teeth clamp down on her trembling lower lip for an instant. “It’s always the same one thing. Orihime can’t handle it when things get tough. She’s too frail. Too nice. Too gentle. She’ll break. Keep her out of it unless you need healing. And you know I can’t.” Her breath shudders out of her, and her tears don’t fall. “I’ve lost people before, Kon. It didn’t break me. You won’t either.”

They stare at each other for a long silent moment, the threshold of the door like an invisible wall between them. Kon swallows back all his knee-jerk reactions and stupid deflections, and just looks. Maybe he’s been underestimating her too.

“I just thought you might be sad if I told you,” he says finally, tucking his stupid numb hands into his pockets. “I mean, I was really sad and scared. But every day since you thrashed those losers who were bothering you has been really fun, and I thought, why spoil it by talking about it? But I didn’t think it through, and then it was too late for me to tell you without seeming like a selfish jerk.” He stares at the floor miserably. “But I am. It wasn’t about if you could handle it, Orihime. It’s ‘cause I can’t handle it. I’m—I’m dying and that’s the truth of it. I’m dying. I’m—” He can’t say it again, though he wants to. He wants to say it over and over and over until he can’t run away from it anymore, until everyone knows, until  _he_  knows. But his throat is aching and tight, trapping all the truth and misery inside him, and suddenly Orihime is in the hallway with him, her arms thrown around his shoulders, damp hair flying up to slap his face. She hugs him like he’s breaking apart, sobbing messy and real into his neck, and he crushes her right back.

They cry in the hallway like two lost kids, and for a while that’s probably the truth of it, too.

Eventually, Kon looks over her shoulder, cloudy-eyed and shaky, and sees her apartment door has shut.

“Oh, I think you’re locked out.”

Orihime rubs her nose with the back of her hand and pulls away, gulping back tears to look at the door.

“Fuck,” she says with heartfelt dismay, and Kon is so surprised to hear her swear that he laughs.

It takes them twenty minutes to find the building manager, and another ten to convince him Orihime actually lives there. By then her hair has dried in messy ringlets and she’s in dire need of a proper tissue, so Kon surprises both of them by grabbing the master keyring off the guy’s belt and opening the door himself. The manager is forced to back away when he accuses the guy of keeping Orihime outside in her dressing gown on purpose. It’s probably not true, but it sure gets him moving.

When they finally get inside and shut the door, the tension between them has gone. So have the tears. Orihime disappears into the bathroom to finish what she’d been in the middle of, but the lingering look she gives him before she does is considering. He’s not really sure what to make of the look, so Kon just starts filling the kettle to heat on the stove. Tea and about three tissues worth of nose-blowing seem like they’re in order. He splashes his sticky face with water from the kitchen faucet and dries it with a paper towel while he waits for the kettle to boil.

Kon knows he can be an idiot, but the shame over trying to control Orihime through his lies is an awful new layer on top of that. Being selfish while trying to be good while trying to be in denial. No wonder it all blew up in his face. Vomiting his pill on her floor was probably the only thing that saved him from inevitable implosion. On top of that he made her doubt herself as a reliable and wonderful friend. Burying his face in his hands, Kon groans with heartfelt disgust at his own dumb actions.

Well, the cat was out of the bag now. The only direction was up from there now, right?

He’s pouring fresh tea into two mugs when the bathroom door opens in a cloud of scented steam. Orihime flicks her hair out from her shoulders in a flare of copper strands. It’s sleek and straight and dry by then, but she’s still wearing her dressing gown.

“That’s better,” she sighs, looking and smelling like a delicious snack. Kon gulps back his usual array of sexually interested thoughts, not because he’s such a saint but because they’ve only just had their heartfelt talk. Maybe it’s too soon to get straight back into kissing and fondling. Or maybe she doesn’t want him at all anymore? He’s damaged goods.

“Um, I realised that I don’t actually have any sexy underwear at all,” Orihime tells him, right there at the edge of the kitchenette. “I guess it’s just something I never thought about.”

“I’m not even wearing any,” Kon tells her blankly, trying to join the conversation. She smiles at him.

“Me neither,” she says, tugging the knot on her sash. Her dressing gown hits the carpet with a whisper, and Kon’s jaw follows. “I just figured this was the next best thing.”

Kon feels like maybe he’s having a heart attack. Or a hallucination.

Orihime is standing right in front of him in a pool of floral and cream silk, wearing nothing but her medallion necklace, her long hair and a rosy blush that spreads from her hairline to the top of her breasts. Feeling a little drunk, he lets his eyes wander over her soft scented skin, following the heavy swell of her breasts into the dip of ribs and nip of her waist; toned, like she still trained for a fight. The flare of her hips was wider than he would have guessed, giving her an hourglass that flowed into long creamy legs. Orihime looked like she should be standing in a giant clam shell, surrounded by sea foam.

When Kon doesn’t—can’t—say anything immediately her arms twitch, like maybe she wants to cover herself, but then she lifts her chin and says exactly four words.

“Kon, I’m seducing you.”

“Okay,” he hears himself saying distantly, and tries to fumble at the hem of his shirt but his fucking fingers are like blocks of wood. “Do you think you could undress me?”

Orihime’s eyes light up like it’s her birthday.

For once she’s not trying to pinch him when she approaches eagerly, whipping his t-shirt off over his head so fast his hair stands up on end with static. When she moves on to start unbuckling his belt Kon finally comes alive, cradling her jaw in his half-numb hands and kissing her deeply, desperately, gratefully. She tastes like mouthwash and strawberry lip gloss, but they soon both fade at the touch of his tongue. He hears the clank of his belt hitting the linoleum floor and a tug at his waist, followed by cool air flowing down his ass. Kon’s eyes spring open and he tries to toe off his socks, utterly refusing to be naked and still wearing socks like some kind of old man.

Naturally, he fails at that too, because his feet clocked out on him a few weeks ago.

“I’ve got them,” she laughs, stroking his thigh with her free hand as she yanks them off and throws the pair toward the door. He’s trying to think of something to reply with when she stays kneeling to pull his jeans down. Kon covers his face and peeks through his fingers. She’s definitely staring at his erect cock. “Oh. The foreign movie channel doesn’t really do it justice, does it?”

“Not really,” Kon manages, but he’s trying not to count the inches between her mouth and himself. “Could you maybe come back up here?”

“In a minute,” she says, and drags a single curious fingertip up the underside of his cock. Kon’s unfeeling toes actually curl in a last-ditch flare of nerves. “Should I be very gentle, or kind of rough?”

“D— just do me a favour and don’t do anything right away,” he tells her, practically begging. If he comes on the spot she’ll probably want to take photos and write about it in her journal. “Can we do something other than…that, with the hands and your mouth?”

Orihime’s brow crinkles slightly with disappointment, but she unfolds to stand in front of him again. Reaching out, he runs his palms up and down her bare sides, pushing the base of his thumbs in toward the underside of her breasts to feel their softness.

“I suppose you could go down on me,” she says after a moment’s consideration. Her cheeks are blooming almost crimson but she’s kind of laughing at him, because his face feels like it’s just turned inside out. “But only if you want to.”

Kon wants to. In fact, he dips his shoulder just like he did that day on the street and hauls every naked, heavy, laughing inch of her over it, grabbing a firm handful of pert asscheek and marches into the bedroom. But not before he almost trips on his jeans and kills them both. They tumble down onto the rumpled quilt in a tangle of limbs and long hair, breathless and still laughing. He pants down at her a little as she pulls hair off her face, spitting it out of her mouth.

“This really is the happiest I’ve ever been,” he tells her, kissing her through her hair. The afternoon sun beaming across the bed makes it look like strands of fire. “You can seduce me or we can knit scarves together. Either one, I still feel like the luckiest mod soul in the universe.”

“Good,” she said simply, and slowly guides his hand down over her stomach and further. “Now will you please touch me like I know you want to?”

Kon does. Oh boy, he does. He only has book smarts and a few forays into porn on Ichigo’s laptop to go off, so he goes slow; watching her, feeling every twitch and listening for every gasp as he works his fingers and tongue along her body. Thankfully she’s vocal and likes to yank on his hair like his head is a gearstick, which is actually incredibly helpful to ground him in what he’s doing. Kon soon learns that dancing around the target is just as good as shooting dead centre, and that her inner thighs are sensitive as hell too. She flushes and swells under his mouth there too, and it’s probably the most endearing thing he’s ever experienced.

She takes fifteen minutes of his intent exploration and attention, writhing on the mattress, breaths slowly coming faster and faster, and then almost breaks his neck with her thighs. The long, low moan that comes out of her makes up for the partial suffocation.

“That was fun,” Kon says when he throws himself down beside her. She’s still breathing like a wounded animal, her cleavage salty with sweat when he kisses it. “I think I have a bald patch, but it was fun.” All he gets is a silent sort of pat around his face. Her eyes are fluttering closed. Oh shit, is she going to sleep?

Kon looks down at his straining erection, still twitching against his skin. Maybe he’ll do this one solo. He gives himself a few short, slow strokes, startled by the sensation of his fingertips moving up and down his shaft. With their feeling almost gone, they don’t really feel like his own fingers. Mmm. Closing his own eyes, brow creasing in concentration, he tries to parse the mix of different sensations, lightening his touch to just his fingertips alone. There we go, he thinks, lips parting on a low sigh. That’s actually not bad.

He’s so focused on himself that he misses the shift of weight on the mattress until he hears the sound of something plastic being uncapped. Then, a loud, obnoxious squelch of a lot of product. Kon’s eyes pop open.

“I know you probably don’t want to actually have sex in that body,” Orihime says, a massive palm-full of what looks like lotion dumped in her hand, “so I had some brilliant thoughts on the matter of getting around taking Ichigo’s body-virginity.”

Kon sits up on an elbow, looking from her hand to her expression and back.

“That’s a lot of lotion just to jerk me off, Orihime.”

“It’s not for that,” she says happily, and slaps the entire lot of it in the valley between her breasts. “Now come on, these giant boobs have to be good for something other than back aches. Hop on.”

Definitely the happiest he’s ever been, Kon thinks, a little starry-eyed as he sits up and straddles her stomach. Beneath him Orihime looks radiantly sated and more than a little enraptured by the sight in front of her. The world could end for him tomorrow, who really knew, but he doesn’t think there’s any afterlife that could top that single afternoon together.

Kon knows he should feel a little guilty for losing his sort-of virginity in Ichigo’s body before Ichigo can, but life is short and Orihime is beautiful, and sometimes, you’ve just gotta live in the moment.

 

* * *

 

“You are such a fucking dick,” Ichigo says the next day when Kon gets home and tells him. His head is in his hands and he sits on the end of the bed like a broken man. “Rukia said you were getting kind of serious with Inoue but I thought she just meant you guys were holding hands or something. You are showering so hard today—you don’t have any weird bruises or hickeys, do you?”

“Got a crick in my neck,” Kon said evenly, not even trying to explain. Ichigo’s whole face does a somersault before it disappears into his hands again. “Plus I figured out the approximate safe distance between dick and face so we don’t blind anyone when we come. If you’re interested.”

" _No._ " Ichigo looks like he wants to bail out the window, but he’s surrounded by fresh laundry that Yuzu couldn’t fold in time for school, so instead he just starts folding jeans in the short, jerky motions of an angry housewife. He gets through about four pieces of clothing before he gives Kon a grudgingly curious look. “Exactly how far are we talking here?”

Kon grins, sits on the other end of the bed and starts grabbing socks to fold.

“Well, it comes down to the science of propulsion…” he starts, and Ichigo leans forward intently to listen.

Kon knows Ichigo gets angry with him a lot, but when it comes down to it he’s every bit the pervert Kon is. He’s just better at hiding it.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

Yuzu and Karin keep a careful eye on him over the next week, but things keep steady. The week after that is the same. No more forgetful moments, and surprisingly even Urahara looks a little perplexed by the readings holding their pattern. Nobody wants to say anything, certainly not Kon, but it’s almost like some kind of slow miracle is happening.

One rainy afternoon at Orihime’s apartment, Kon is stunned to realise it’s been almost two months since his original diagnosis. Double the time they’d given him originally, even with his casing chipped off. It gives him a weird feeling of excitement, and he clamps down on it as hard as he can. They’re in overtime, and he plans to treat every moment like it could be snatched away in an instant.

Naturally, the Kurosaki family decides to throw a party.

“Let them have their fun,” is all Ichigo says as the twins bustle around hanging streamers and hauling out steaming plates of appetisers, still a spectator of his own life while he’s in shinigami form. But he hasn’t asked for his body back yet, and Kon is starting to suspect he doesn’t really want it too badly. “They don’t get to do these very often, and it’s a good excuse to get everyone together.”

“I don’t know,” he says doubtfully. “It feels like a jinx.”

“Rukia’s coming.”

“I love parties!” he cries, excited, making Isshin whoop and sweep in to noogie him. “Who else is coming? Please say nobody invited that mad scientist.”

“I am suitably wounded,” says a voice from the door. Urahara takes off his hat and gives a courtly bow to Yuzu and Karin. Kon rolls his eyes. “Unless you meant Kurotsuchi-taichou, who did unspeakable things to your lion body. Where is that item, by the way? I’d love to examine it intimately.”

Kon is horrified. Not just because of the implications of Urahara fondling his plush body, but because he really isn’t sure what became of it. The look Ichigo gives him is patiently reassuring though, and he shakes his head.

“No plush experiments tonight, sorry,” Ichigo says. “Tonight is for, uh…”

“Living in the moment,” a female voice jumps in behind them, “and cutting Ichigo’s grass.”

Kon turns and there she is: tiny, wicked and smirking like a goblin. Rukia sticks her sword in the umbrella stand and shoves an entire mini pizza from Yuzu’s tray in her mouth before Kon can get across to hug her. She’s birdlike in his arms, but she doesn’t kick or punch him when he lifts her off the ground. She smells like snow and pepperoni, and he’s missed her pointy face and huge eyes.

“I don’t have any grass,” Ichigo is saying loudly over the laughter that follows. “Rukia, you’re a life-ruining pain in my ass.”

“Uh huh,” she says, wheezing it out a little. “Kon, good to see you still have your strength.”

“I love you, nee-san,” he tells her fervently, and drops her back on her feet so hard she jolts her back. “Good job making Ichigo pee his pants.”

Ichigo bristles all over again at the indignity of it. Urahara, ever interested in stories of great humiliation, grabs an apple slice to stir his gin and tonic and approaches to ask questions. Karin is playing cocktail waitress from the kitchen with more skill than anyone knew she had while Isshin frowns suspiciously at her, like she’s been working part time in a yakuza club somewhere. Thinking maybe he should linger near the front door a little to wait for Orihime, Kon picks up a tiny spring roll to chew and walks out into the hallway.

“Oh, you’re not dead,” says Yoruichi as he rounds the corner, almost knocking him over. Damn her silent cat feet! Her grin is white and pleased as she stretches his cheek painfully. “Us cats can’t go giving up our lives too easily, you know. Good to see you, Kon. Where’s the alcohol?”

“Ow. Go find Karin in the kitchen, booze aunt.”

“What, no flirting?” she laughs, already heading down the hall. “You’re a changed man!”

She’s gone before he can think of anything to say. Mostly he’s pleased, because he is a changed man. Soul. Whatever. He knows exactly what—or more accurately who—to owe it all to, and it’s not his sickness. He checks himself over quickly to make sure he looks okay. Black jeans and a dark blue button-down shirt are kinda plain, but he’s rolled the sleeves up so she’ll see the bracelet still tied around his wrist. Its little medallion is getting a bit dull but the gold colour is still there and the leather hasn’t cracked, which is probably as good as it can be. He wonders if she’ll be wearing her—

The narrow hallways flutters around him for an instant, stretching and warping into a tunnel-like shape. Kon grabs the wall quickly, but it’s already settled back down again. No nausea, just a little bit of a—

There’s a  _pop_  of crackling pain in his head.

It’s the only thing he registers.

 

* * *

 

Kon doesn’t wake up.

 

* * *

 

Ichigo stares unblinkingly at his father.

The words technically make sense, but there’s a mental wall between what he’s saying and Ichigo’s understanding.

“But he’s not dead,” Ichigo says, for what feels like the millionth time. “He’s still in there.”

“Kurosaki-san, I understand your father’s words are difficult to accept, but this is something that needs to happen.” Urahara puts a careful hand on Ichigo’s shoulder. It’s light, undemanding. It’s not like Urahara to be gentle. “Kon has experienced a catastrophic failure of all function. In human terms, it’s a fatal stroke.”

“He’s not dead,” Ichigo says, shrugging off the hand. “If he’s not—”

“Ichigo, your body is showing no more life than if there was nothing in it at all.” Isshin grabs his face with both hands and drags it up to look him in the eye. “What you’re seeing is mechanical function to preserve the life of its vessel. He’s already gone, son. We need to get him out.”

Ichigo’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. There’s a pressure in his chest that’s crushing his lungs. The clinic walls start to cloud over. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.

When he finally heaves air into his body, it’s with the hoarse wrack of a sob he didn’t know was coming. Isshin hauls him into his arms, holding him up like a doll when his knees buckle. Wooden and gasping against his father, staring into the sterile white room with unseeing eyes, Ichigo has no idea what to do. He’s a kid again, nine and stupid. The girls. Inoue. Rukia. Who was going to tell them? Who was going to comfort them? Him? He can’t even think. He’s useless, he’s _useless ._

Kon died alone in a hallway, and nobody even noticed.

It took ten minutes for Inoue to reach the house after running late. She entered the hallway and just started screaming; unnatural, terrible wailing sounds that were like nothing he’d ever heard before. Ichigo thinks he’ll be hearing those screams for the rest of his life. It had taken Isshin and Urahara both to restrain her so Ichigo could carry Kon’s—his—body into the clinic.

Now Ichigo has to tell her Kon had died out there on the floor.

“He said it was a jinx,” Ichigo says thinly, pulling back from Isshin on wobbly legs. He reels back when hands come for him again, stumbling away until he can feel cold plaster against his back. “I told him to let it happen. If he’d rested, not pushed himself—”

“It’s not uncommon to have one last rally of energy and health,” Urahara says, his voice almost soothing. “We all knew it would happen fast, and we were all still taken by surprise. But the time for surprise is over. Your body will suffer the longer he’s in there. The extraction must happen soon.”

Extraction. Mechanical function. Failure. Like he’s a broken robot. Ichigo swallows around the lump in his throat and wipes his wet cheeks angrily, approaching the hospital bed where Kon was still laying. Permanently asleep inside his body. Hair still messy. Bracelet still on his wrist. Bruise on his temple.

 _I can’t die in this body,_ he’d said, the day Ichigo read the letter. Comforting him, when it should have been the other way around.

Ichigo can’t be useless while there are still things he owes it to Kon to do. He pulls in a long, shuddering breath.

“Let me tell them.”

 

* * *

 

It’s somehow both the worst and easiest thing Ichigo’s ever had to do.

All they do is look at his face, and they know.

Inoue hits the floor like a puppetmaster cut her strings, her pretty dark blue dress pooling around her. She wore it to match Kon. Ichigo knows it like he knows his own name. Her mouth opens, and absolutely nothing comes out. There’s nothing to say. They all knew, but nobody  _knew._  She buries her face in her small palms and hitches small, tiny breaths, like all the sounds she would ever make were left in the awful echo of the hallway.

Rukia, with her soldier’s heart and quiet reserve, squeezes her eyes shut and turns her face away to the shadows, hands in tiny fists by her sides. Yoruichi looks between both girls and kneels by Inoue’s side, murmuring things he couldn’t hear. Didn’t want to hear.

It’s Yuzu and Karin who crush him, clutching each other in fearful grief. They know, just as Ichigo knows he still has to tell them. It’s never real until someone says the words.

“He’s gone.”

Yuzu can barely see or hear him, but even she understands when Karin turns and puts her fist through the wall. He leans back on the wall behind him for balance and tries not to fall apart. He was prepared. It was inevitable.

 _Everybody dies eventually_. Kon’s words.

Listening to his sisters start sobbing and Inoue trying not to, Ichigo thinks there’s an entire galaxy between eventually and now.

 

* * *

 

“I want to see him,” Inoue says after the girls have been taken to bed, heartsore and exhausted. She’s pale-faced and trembling. “Before you take him. Please.”

Ichigo doesn’t know how he’s still functioning, but he’s got enough in him to worry about her.

“Inoue, don’t do that to yourself.”

“I have to. Kon is—” she swallows, gripping the necklace around her throat. “I know he’s gone, but I need to say goodbye. Before you take over again. I need to be able to look at you without seeing him.”

Hugging her would make sense. Being hugged would make even more. But instead Ichigo stands there, lost and understanding, nodding as his eyes find the floor, the wall, the clinic door. His nod is silent and jerky, but he can’t find a way to speak. So he takes her hand by the fingertips and tugs her along with him, back to the door where the enormous hole in their lives was laying on a hospital bed.

They haven’t plugged him into anything. Kon just looks like he’s asleep.

Inoue stumbles past Urahara and Isshin like they’re furniture and buries her face in Kon’s chest. He’s still warm, still breathing. It’s the worst part of all of it. Ichigo’s body isn’t dead but Kon is. His vision stings again but he pushes it back, all of it, even when Inoue lifts her head and gently kisses Kon’s unmoving mouth.

Ichigo knows it’s his body, but it’s Kon that she kisses goodbye.

She hurries past him when she leaves, keeping her head down and eyes averted. He wonders if she’ll ever be able to look at him again.

It’s Rukia who does the final extraction, insisting in spite of the shadows in her eyes that it should be her. She dons the old red glove with its flaming skull, kidou in every stitch of the fabric, and Ichigo tips his body up a little. She hesitates when Ichigo feels tears dripping off his chin, silent and betraying all his control. So he reaches with one hand and cradles Kon’s head against his shoulder, presses a hard kiss into dishevelled hair. For the next few seconds, the body belongs to Kon. Even if he’s not there anymore.

“Thanks,” Ichigo whispers, exhaling through his splintering control. “For everything, Kon. I’ll miss you.”

Rukia’s teeth are clenched as she pushes her hand against his chest, the rippling shock of kidou finding its way home.

Isshin catches the remains as they fall through Ichigo’s body, too fast to see what became of him. Ichigo doesn’t care. The outcome is the same; it doesn’t matter how many pieces he was in. He just stands there, cradling the empty shell of his own body, wondering how the hell he can ever get back into it again.

Rukia pries his hands away finally, always there to do what he couldn’t. Let go. Stand up. Hold on. Fight.

Ichigo follows her like a dumb animal, and doesn’t know what to say when she hunches down in the living room and covers her mouth with both hands.

Hugging her would make sense. Being hugged would make more. He doesn’t do either.

Ichigo doesn’t know what to do.

Kon is dead, and the world is still moving.

There’s something wrong with that.

 

* * *

 

It takes another three days before anything seems real. Ichigo’s phone beeps and rings and he ignores it through apathy more than any conscious effort. He eats, showers, sleeps, nods to his father when he asks how he’s holding up. Fine. Ichigo is always fine.

It took an entire extra day for him to gather the nerve to re-enter his body. It didn’t feel like it was his anymore.

His body was a graveyard. Something unfamiliar, something he was borrowing back from a friend. Worn, treasured, kissed while somebody else had been using it. For the first time, Ichigo feels like an impostor in his own life.

Finally, it’s the phone that breaks through his fog. He picks it up one evening to charge it, and the display blinks to life.

The background is a picture of Inoue’s waxed leg—the same picture she’d sent Kon. Ichigo saw it while he was scrolling through his messages that night. What was she doing right now? Grieving alone?

Sitting on the floor of his room, Ichigo opens the recent messages and reads.

There’s five new messages from Inoue, sent yesterday, and none of them are for him.

Ichigo reads them until he knows the words by heart, his eyes tracing each letter like he can somehow pull the strength out of them and put it inside himself. When he finally puts the phone down, there’s a little more space in the hard knot of his chest. Ichigo tips his head back against the mattress of his bed and holds his arm up so the bracelet on his wrist can catch the lamplight. It’s a cheap little bracelet, just black leather string wound over and over, a dull disc of gold painted metal hanging off it. Ichigo will wear it until it falls apart.

Inoue is owed a memory, he thinks as he stares at it, and it’s one he can’t stand to keep for himself. She’s owed something of Kon, when the face he wore is a ghost only Ichigo can lay claim to now. So he gets up and opens his wardrobe, pulls folded blankets apart until he can see it.

Just a little lion, Ichigo thinks, touching the soft fabric of its ear. A little lion that he can’t look at, where she can’t look at him. It fits. More importantly, he thinks, pulling in a long breath, drawing his shoulders back, it’s right.

Ichigo turns off his phone before he heads out onto the street, leaving it on the desk. When he gets outside the air is cool on his skin, and it’s finally starting to feel like it belongs to him. Maybe it’s time for a new phone.

With a stuffed lion in his hand and a cheap bracelet on his wrist, Ichigo figures he can do Kon one last favour.

Yeah.

Ichigo turns his face up to the night sky and wonders if he’s out there, somewhere. Despite all the odds, maybe even a mod soul could pass on somewhere nice.

It was all just borrowed time, after all.

Ichigo gives himself one breath, two. Then he pulls himself up and starts down the street to Inoue’s, the lion held safe in his grip.

“Just one more time.”

 

  

**END.**

 


End file.
